amissio

Forms

āmissiō f (genitive āmissiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin āmittō (“to let go, lose”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3] āmittō is a compound of ā¹ (“away from”) and mittō (“to send, let go”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in the Rhetorica ad Herennium,^[3][4] where a general defends himself over the loss of an army.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the fact of losing, a loss.^[2] Lewis & Short find it several times in Cicero and rarely elsewhere, and the TLL notes that it is absent from Varro, Caesar, Nepos, Sallust and the poets but becomes commoner later.^[5][3] Cicero speaks of the loss of all one's property, of towns, of rank, of the senses, of friends, and of a fleet.^[2][5] Pliny the Elder has the loss of leaves, Seneca the loss of friends and children, and the jurist Ulpian the loss of citizenship.^[2][5] The Vulgate has the loss of a man's two eyes and the promise in Acts that no life will be lost.^[5] Church Latin keeps “loss”.^[6]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium, of the loss of an army.^[2][3][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the loss of property, rank and friends.^[2][5][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of the loss of leaves.^[5][4]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate, of the loss of two eyes.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A losing, loss, deprivation: of property, of a faculty or quality, of persons by death or separation, of an army or town.^[2][5][1][6]

Related words

• mittō
• iactūra
• damnum

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes āmittō “to lose” so that a thing is no longer ours, the opposite of retinēre, from perdō “to lose” so that it is destroyed and made useless, the opposite of servāre.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper